RIM Delivers More BlackBerry Widget Tools

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is hard at work with delivering an extensive set of tools to the developers for its BlackBerry smartphone operating system. The company has launched not too long ago its application portal for the users of a BlackBerry smartphone, the App World, and now it is working closely with developers to increase the number of applications available for its handsets.

We've already reported on a series of tools that the BlackBerry developers received a few weeks ago, and now it seems that more solutions are available for them. Among them, a BlackBerry Web Plug-in version 2.0 Beta1 edition of the web tooling for Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio has been released and is available for download, offering support for debugging tasks on the BlackBerry Device Software version 5.0.

“The BIG news for this release is the new support for building BlackBerry Widget projects. These tools will allow you to create BlackBerry Widgets in a much more automated manner compared to calling the BlackBerry Widget SDK via the command line. We have also added a getting started page that will appear when you start using the tooling that will connect you with the right online resources, forums and content to speed your widget development,” a post on the BlackBerry Developer's Blog states.

It seems that the new plug-ins have been designed so as to enable developers enjoy new versions of the BlackBerry Widget SDK as soon as they are released without having to update the Eclipse or Visual Studio tooling. “The BlackBerry Web Plug-in Beta1 release is specifically designed to automate the authoring, building and running of a BlackBerry Widget on a simulator within two of the most popular development environments out there,” the blog post notes.

However, it should be noted that the Beta1 release does not come around with support for JavaScript breakpoint debugging of a BlackBerry Widget. Even so, it seems that the debugging solution will come in the near future, along with other development features, as soon as further releases arrive. In the meantime, those who would like to learn more on the development of BlackBerry Widgets, through the use of the BlackBerry Web Development Plug-in, can learn more by watching this video for Eclipse, or this video for Microsoft Visual Studio.

Download BlackBerry Web Plug-in for Eclipse 2.0 Beta1
Download BlackBerry Web Plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio 2.0 Beta1